


No More Bad Days

by modernpatroclus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post Deathly Hallows, Post Second World War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5648683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the war, Ginny Weasley is still trying to put herself back together. Some days are better than others. But overall, she's doing better than she thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More Bad Days

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a song of the same name by This Wild Life.  
> Enjoy!

Ginny sits in a chair in the living room at the Burrow, idly flipping through an old photo album that she knows her mother must’ve been looking at not long ago. She tries to ignore the subtle pang in her chest whenever she sees Fred’s picture, almost always accompanied by a tearstain or two.

The door off of the kitchen opens, but she doesn’t look up. Whoever it is, she’d rather they not badger her about what or how she’s doing at that moment.

Lately, giving voice to her thoughts is as difficult as it was in her first year at Hogwarts, when she had been alone to deal with the loneliness that drove her to finding solace in that diary.

So Ginny leans her face closer to the glossy page and focuses on controlling her breathing, lest the guest hear a sniffle slip out.

“Oy! Damn chair leg,” she hears Tonks exclaim from the kitchen, followed by the sounds of scuffling Ginny well knows as hopping around on one leg.

Despite her broody mood, she lets out a giggle at her friend’s antics. There has been so little laughter in her life for the past few years that Ginny now laughs at even the smallest of things.

They may have won the war, but with the smoke cleared and the rubble rebuilt, every day feels like a new battle to Ginny. Only these are inside of her, and she’s completely alone. Some days are better than others, where she is fine once she forces herself out of bed to face the day. Others still are more wearing, wherein she feels the weight of every decision and every mistake like a constant burden, from the moment her eyes open to the moment her brain finally shuts down at night. Some days she feels some semblance of her old self, and others she merely looks the same, albeit older and more weary.

Her and Harry had tried to make being a couple work after the war was over, but in the end they just couldn’t. Both wanted a fresh start, so they went their separate ways.

At first, neither knew what they wanted, and briefly entertained the idea of caving and reuniting. But it would last only until the sun rose, and with it all of their coherent thoughts of why they didn’t work.

Eventually, Harry found solace in the last place any of them expected: Luna. But once the initial shock passed, Ginny realized just how much sense they in fact made. They were two very distinct halves of a puzzle, one that no one could understand until put together.

She was everything Ginny couldn’t be for him: A light, a hopeful promise that everything would be okay again, no matter how many bad days they faced. Because despite all of Luna’s personal losses during and before the war, she somehow managed to never let the pain pull her under.

Ginny, on the other hand, felt like she was drowning, with land in her sights but just out of reach.

And with Harry being more or less the same, neither of them could save the other. No, they both needed to part and find their own life preservers. And for Harry, that was Luna.

Though Ginny didn’t regret their break up, and she could never bear Luna any ill will – for being both herself through the war and making Harry whole again after – sometimes in her darkest moments, Ginny found herself envious of what the couple had together. They found peace and the ability to carry on despite their tremendous losses. It was no longer a burden, but a reminder to them to live _for_ those they’d lost.

And Ginny was still sinking with hers.

“Ginny you tosser, what’re you laughing at?” Tonks’s irritated voice breaks Ginny from her thoughts once again.

“You, you clutz! You’ve been in this house a million times, yet you still manage to run into things that never move,” she teases, coming back to herself rather quickly. Tonks has that effect on her, though Ginny has yet to figure out how or why.

“I don’t believe that. You probably do move things around in here,” Tonks accuses, but Ginny can hear the teasing in her voice even before she sees her rounding the corner into the room.

All of the chairs and the couch are unoccupied, but Tonks ignores them, choosing instead to lay across Ginny’s lap. The currently lilac-haired woman leans back so her mouth is close to Ginny’s ear. Goosebumps rise on her skin that she hopes go unnoticed as Tonks breathes slowly in her ear. She waits for her to say something, but Tonks keeps her waiting, anticipating.

Then she simply whispers, “Hi.”

It’s one word, spoken all the time without a second thought. But this time, it makes the goosebumps on her skin linger, like the warmth of her skin after laying in the sun for hours.

Ginny doesn’t notice the shiver that she lets out until Tonks whispers, “Cold?”

“Yeah,” she whispers back, a bit dazed. She’s not sure when this started, her flustered behavior. It reminds her of when she was younger and first had a crush on Harry, when she couldn’t even speak in front of him. Now, she’s older and much more experienced, but she’s still having the same juvenile problem she only gets when she really fancies someone.

She didn’t have this problem with Michael or Dean, or even Harry the second time around. But it’s back now, and with a vengeance.

Tonks draws a blanket from the back of the chair and drapes it over them, smiling faintly at the newfound peace settled on Ginny’s features.

It’s so subtle she doesn’t realize it. And only later that night, while laying in bed and staring at the ceiling in the somehow brighter darkness, she finally puts the pieces together in her mind and deciphers her puzzle.

The bad days, the ones where it feels like she’s drowning inside herself, are the ones in which she doesn’t see Tonks. But every good day – the ones where she feels like she will eventually reach dry land – since the war has been one spent, at least a little bit, in the company of her crazy-haired friend.

Ginny has found her own life preserver in Tonks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, let me know!


End file.
